Adam Green's creation returned and largely triumphantly. Some spectacular kills and plenty of humour, even if it does get a bit too silly for its own good at times. Some nice tie-ins with previous instalments and also a

I'm not a huge fan of the Hatchet franchise, but the latest surprise installment was the most enjoyable to date - a few laughs, plenty of gore and some great death set pieces. Probably my favourite opening scene of the festival too. 7/10

Last edited by WraithApe on Tue Aug 29, 2017 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Judging by the hysterical reaction at the end, I'm going to be in a minority here... but I don't really like the Hatchet films.

Slasher films generally work because the potential victims are all single-dimensional obnoxious morons and you just can't wait for them to be offed by the brutal but oddly sympathetic masked killers.

In the Hatchet films, the victims are still cretinous stereotypes but Adam Green, damn him, has a knack of making his characters likeable so I really don't want them to be killed off. And as for Victor Crowley, although he has the standard deformed-and-abused-kid back-story, I don't feel any sympathy for him at all. I hate him. He's too brutal, too unrelenting, every time he appears I don't want to cheer whatever hideous mutilation he's about to inflict, I just want him to fuck off and be blown to a million pieces. Maybe the lack of a mask is a problem too, those blank visages of Jason and Michael Myers make them cold and inhuman but also give them a weird sense of innocence. Victor's just an ugly mean-looking bastard.

As for the film itself... exactly like the other three, although it actually seemed to have a lower body count than I was expecting.

The highlight was the Q&A. One and a half stars just for that. Mr Green can really work a FrightFest audience and I enjoyed his Dangerous Toys anecdote. He's a clever, talented guy, I just wish he'd make a really great film one day.

You need a FF audience with a charitable nature for this stuff. I enjoyed it but i can't imagine watching in any other circumstances. The broad, jock humour misses quite frequently. Adam's way with comedy dialogue and pace has been improved by his lame sitcom experience. another one-set movie which seems to be the theme of the weekend.

Ive never seen any of the Hatchet films, so this one didnt enthuse me much before I went in. Luckily apart from the final stinger, the film set the history and plot up enough where I didnt really need to know the other 3 movies.

The kills were alright, some of the humor was ok (such as Wilf at the bookstore) but some of the other humor was a bit cringeworthy (Dillon mainly). It was an 'meh' film that didnt add anything new or interesting to the genre (and i suspect the franchise) and Crowley just seemed like a poor mans Jason.

I got a bit teary at the start with Adam Greens tale about his hardships and his relationship with Wes and Romero and I wish him all the best (plus Adams cute as a button), but I hope for a little more innovation in future endeavors.

I got a bit teary at the start with Adam Greens tale about his hardships and his relationship with Wes and Romero and I wish him all the best (plus Adams cute as a button), but I hope for a little more innovation in future endeavors.

I missed the intro because I got confused about the starting time. That helps explain the OTT reaction at the end, although in previous years when Green & Lynch were annual visitors the FF crowd would always get a bit hysterical over everything they did.

This was a great frighlfest movie...exactly what was needed...yes it was more of a comedy but Adam Green explained his thinking behind making it what it was.
I enjoyed it... some good laughs...good kill scenes and watched with the right crowd. Adam Green knows the frighlfest crowd and it felt like this was made for us (most of us)

This was a prime example of how the atmosphere and communal experience of Frightfest can make films seem better than they really are, because I don't think this would work without the Frightfest experience. To be fair it's definitely better than Hatchet III and probably somewhere between the first two Hatchets in quality, but if you've seen any Hatchet films you know what to expect, with a group of annoying but sympathetically rounded characters going to the Louisiana swamps to get hacked to pieces by a resurrected Victor Crowley. As usual there's a lot of lowbrow humour which is overused to the detriment of the horror, but what really brings the film down is the low budget that can't realise the potential. There's a lot of introductions and it takes a long time for the setup to be complete and Victor Crowley to finally be revived, then much of the movie has the victims stuck in the plane while Victor Crowley prowls around outside and it feels like a way to save money, with the crucial scene of their escape not shown. the gore is where a lot of the budget and effort for this film has gone, with a few inventive and genuinely shocking deaths. I like the cruelty of the Hatchet series, as unlike the generic Friday 13th sequels, you do actually feel something for these characters and feel horror when they are horribly killed. It also doesn't kill off the people you might expect, but apart from that this feels like a lesser slasher.

I got a bit teary at the start with Adam Greens tale about his hardships and his relationship with Wes and Romero and I wish him all the best (plus Adams cute as a button), but I hope for a little more innovation in future endeavors.

I missed the intro because I got confused about the starting time. That helps explain the OTT reaction at the end, although in previous years when Green & Lynch were annual visitors the FF crowd would always get a bit hysterical over everything they did.

For anybody else who missed it, before the start of this film, Adam Green gave a passionate and sweet introduction talking about how he went through a very bad time a couple of years ago and became depressed by the output of his circle of horror directors compared to the achievements of the greats of the 70s and 80s, and that George Romero himself had encouraged to go back to the Hatchet films to give the fans what they wanted. He even had a couple of photos to project on the screen of the precise moment Romero convinced him to make the film. Personally, I don't think more Hatchet films are the way to rival the masterpieces of Craven, Romero et al., but anyway after that introduction everyone was rooting for Green and wanted to like the film, so there were huge cheers for all the gory deaths and laughs for the jokes which were fun to experience